Most of the research on urban change in the formerly centrally planned countries has focused on the more prosperous capital cities of Warsaw, Prague, Berlin, Budapest and Tallinn. Thus, our understanding of on-going urban transformations in this part of the world is skewed towards a handful of urban areas. This paper takes a different approach by studying the post-socialist transformations of the socio-spatial structure of a second-tier city, based on data from Łódź, Poland. The results reveal the socio-spatial restructuring of Łódź at both the macro and micro levels. Most importantly, despite being organised at a wider scale by stable social areas, at the micro level there are dynamic processes of socio-spatial segregation throughout the city that contribute to the fine-grained fragmentation of social space. From an empirical perspective, this means that either a stable structure or growing fragmentation can be identified, depending on the scale of analysis.

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BackgroundIn this study, we analyze the association of social isolation in the first phase of the pandemic with perceived stress among residents of Poland and Italy with a look at how these populations adjust to and comply with implemented regulations, guidelines, and restrictions.Materials and MethodsInternet survey with Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10) and questions regarding mobility patterns, attitude, and propensity to adjust toward the implemented measures and current health condition was made among Polish and Italian residents (Cronbach’s alpha 0.86 and 0.79, respectively). The sample size was 7,108 (6,169 completed questionnaires in Poland and 939 in Italy).ResultsThe Polish group had a higher stress level than the Italian group (mean PSS-10 total score 22,14 vs 17,01, respectively; p < 0.01). There was a greater prevalence of chronic diseases among Polish respondents. Italian subjects expressed more concern about their health, as well as about their future employment. Italian subjects did not comply with suggested restrictions as much as Polish subjects and were less eager to restrain from their usual activities (social, physical, and religious), which were more often perceived as “most needed matters” in Italian than in Polish residents.ConclusionHigher activity level was found to be correlated with lower perceived stress, but the causality is unclear. Difference in adherence to restrictions between Polish and Italian residents suggests that introducing similar lockdown policies worldwide may not be as beneficial as expected. However, due to the applied method of convenience sampling and uneven study groups, one should be careful with generalizing these results.

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This article aims to identify the resilience of the Pomorskie Region in Poland. The analysed region belongs to a group of European regions where the negative impact of the economic crisis has not been distinctively visible. In a unitary state like Poland the resilience of the region to the crisis results to a high degree from the external macroeconomic factors of the country. However some regional features play an important role in strengthening resilience. We analysed socio-economic structures in the context of their significance for the region's resilience. Walker's and Salt's (Resilience Thinking. Sustaining ecosystems and people in a changing world, 2006) resilience attributes were used as a template for the findings. Although it is difficult to determine the level of a region's resilience in a situation of ongoing and growing recession, some conclusions may be derived from the analysis. One of the most important factors of the Pomorskie Region's resilience is the diversity of economic and social structures. The community and its social capital is undoubtedly one of the strongest attributes of the regional resilience. The Pomorskie Region's richness in ecosystem services also strengthens its resilience significantly. Overlaps in governance are mainly connected with the development of institutional embeddedness. However the current lack of governance on the level of the most dynamically developing metropolitan areas is an impediment to more dynamic development. The post-totalitarian tradition of centralised governance continues to negatively influence the tight feedbacks attribute of resilience.

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The aim of this article was to analyse the problems related to the processes of creation of metropolitan areas. The Polish case of Gdańsk-Gdynia metropolitan area constitutes the basis for the discussion as its polycentric structure intensifies the problems that stem from integration and the restructuring of administrative power. The difficulties in the creation of new metropolitan entities are well illustrated by the lack of agreement on the name of a metropolitan area. Local and regional leaders' different visions on metropolitan government deeply complicate political integration. The complexity of relations between metropolitan and the rural areas creates additional challenges for achieving a cohesive regional policy.